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Retiring Rock goaltender Bob Watson can crown his superlative career with a victory Sunday in the NLL title game.

Rock goaltender Bob Watson, with son Dylan and daughter Sydney during a pregame ceremony honouring his stellar career, will retire after Sunday's NLL championship game against the Washington Stealth at the Air Canada Centre. (RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Daniel GirardSports Reporter

Sat., May 14, 2011

Bob Watson is arguably the greatest professional athlete Toronto has seen.

Consider the evidence.

Over his 15-year career, which ends Sunday with the National Lacrosse League title game at the Air Canada Centre, Watson of the Toronto Rock has become one of the league’s all-time greatest goaltenders.

He’s only the second to win 100 games, finishing with a 104-62 regular-season record. His 6,471 saves are the most in the NLL’s 25-year history. Along the way, he’s won the goaltender-of-the-year award twice and is a shoo-in for selection to the league’s Hall of Fame.

As impressive as those statistics are, they’re nothing compared to Watson’s playoff record. He’s 15-4 in the post-season going into Sunday’s game against the Washington Stealth, including 5-2 in championship matches, and was the MVP of the 2003 title game in the Rock’s 8-6 win in Rochester.

Watson, who was born, raised and still lives in Guelph, began his career in Baltimore. He joined the expansion Ontario Raiders in 1998 and became a fixture with the Rock when the franchise moved here the next year.

While his on-floor exploits aren’t likely to spring to the minds of sports fans like those of Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter, Damon Allen, Vince Carter, Mats Sundin or the long list of greats from the Leafs’ and Argonauts’ glorious past, Bob (Whipper) Watson is one of the best to ever play for a Toronto team.

The fact the NLL is a semi-professional league of weekend warriors who work all week — Watson is a rookie officer with the Waterloo Region Police — and play on weekends makes his records and longevity even more astounding.

“When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter how much money you make,” said Rock captain Colin Doyle, a teammate of Watson for 11 seasons. “He’s done what he does as good as anybody else.

“It’s realistic that we’re a second-tier sport and we get second-tier respect. That’s fair and I get it. But at the end of the day, Toronto is starved in mainstream sports for somebody like Bob who puts the team first, shows up when it counts the most and is a proven winner.”

Having reached his goal late last season to play professionally until age 40, Watson considered hanging up his mask last summer, especially after giving up his longtime day job with a printing company for the shift work of a cop.

But as training camp loomed, Watson realized he wanted to come back for one more season. It was a decision made easier by the bitterness of losing last year’s championship game to Washington with a final-quarter collapse.

It’s been vintage Watson in 2011. He was January’s NLL player of the month and was selected to his fourth all-star team. His 10 wins tied for second and his .788 save percentage trailed only Rochester’s Matt Vinc, who earlier this week was named the league’s goaltender of the year.

But Watson, who turned 41 last month, said win or lose, Sunday is the end.

“I’m really at ease with my decision,” said the married father of two.

While the emotion of knowing Sunday marks the final game of his career could be a distraction, Watson insisted it will not be. He said the pre-game ceremony in his honour in front of 15,084 fans — the largest crowd to see the Rock at home in two seasons — in the final regular-season game at the Air Canada Centre last month was stirring and allowed him to get all the emotions out.

“I’ve already had my day,” he said. “This is not about my last game this weekend. This is about playing a championship game.

“For me, the focus is the championship at stake. The retirement thing is past. I know at the end I’ll do a final salute (to the fans) but that’s the extent of it.”

But the entire Rock organization wants to win this one for the Whipper.

“What an unbelievable fairy-tale ending waiting to be written for Bob Watson,” said Rock owner Jamie Dawick, a fan of the NFL’s Denver Broncos, who sent Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway into retirement with a Super Bowl win and game MVP award in his last season in 1999.

“That was perfect and this would be the same,” Dawick said.

After missing the playoffs two seasons in a row, including equalling a franchise-worst mark of 6-10 in 2009, questions were raised about Watson’s future. Coming off a career-high 12.79 goals-against average, there was talk that the Rock should look for a new goalie as they rebuilt the team.

“A lot of people wrote him off,” said Dawick, who bought the team before the 2010 season. “But I don’t think he’s changed since the last championship win (2005), it’s that the team around him has.

“At 41, he’s still at the top of his game.”

Like any goalie in any sport, Watson has let in his share of bad goals. But with the game on the line or a title at stake, he’s always been able to make the big save, as he did in the final minutes of a 12-11 win over the Bandits in Buffalo in last Saturday’s Eastern Division final.

“He’s never got the recognition he deserves,” said Blaine Manning, Watson’s teammate since 2002. “But he doesn’t care about any of that stuff because to him it’s all about winning.

“To give him another chance, at home, in his last game ever, it’s a pretty good opportunity for us to bring out our best game so he can go out on top.”

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